Weekly wrap: the new paradigm-y parliament

What a week this has been. A week in which we came to see just how badly we had been deceived, but still found we could laugh at our misfortune.

For those of us interested in important things, the week proceeded in the shadow of the aftermath of the AFL Grand Final, which ended in a nail biting draw for only the third time in history, forcing a replay and sparking much angst among football fans, who hate nothing more than having to watch more football, and debate as to whether it would be better to play extra time in the event of a drawn grand final. This suggestion was rejected by AFL boss Andrew Demetriou, who has always been a staunch defender of the indigenous code's proud tradition of charging as many people as possible several hundred dollars for tickets.

The thought of another grand final put even more stress on the weary players who must drag their battered bodies onto the field once more, especially gutsy Collingwood skipper Nick "Princess" Maxwell, who is in doubt for the replay due to a severely strained tear duct.

Of course, there was another significant element to the grand final saga, which was the enormous contribution the draw made to the advancement of world comedy and political satire.

Let me briefly explain. A few people - people whose incandescent wit can hardly be fathomed - noticed, after the grand final, that there were certain parallels that could be drawn between the result of the game and - wait for it - the result of the federal election.

Wow! It heralded in a whole new era of humorous commentary, as the jokes flew thick and fast in a way that made them continue to be fresh and amusing well past the five-minute mark. Why, people were still making the jokes on Monday, and we were all laughing as hard as ever! For example, what if - wait for it, again - Rob Oakeshott decided the winner of the AFL? Whoa! And what if, further, he made a really long boring speech about it? Isn't that a HILARIOUS juxtaposition?

Not that it stopped there: some irrepressible wags - experts estimate there were about twenty-eight million of them - actually referred to the game as a "hung grand final". HAR! Because we have a hung parliament, you see? Oh no they di-n't! It never gets old no matter how many times you hear it; it's amazing how a great joke can stay fresh even after being told by the six hundredth person who is absolutely certain he is the first one to say it.

Anyway, on Saturday it will all happen again, and this time, finally, we will have a premier, either the gallant Saints for the first time since 1763, or Collingwood, in which case with any luck we will all quickly and painlessly be swallowed up by the cracking earth as the universe tears itself apart in horror.

On Sunday of course, there will be another grand final, in the NRL, and where the AFL is a straightforward contest between good and evil, the league decider is a more complex one, between recovering alcoholics and evil. It is hard to know who to barrack for, given the likelihood that a Roosters win will see a drunken rampage through Sydney that may last well into next year, and a St George-Illawarra victory will see coach Wayne Bennett systematically killing all first-born sons, as he vowed to do upon taking the job.

Not that the week was all about football. There were also exciting developments in the field of faintly nauseating reality shows featuring embryo-eyed mantises tottering about in stupid shoes while squinty midgets tell them they're fat.

Australia's Next Top Model came to its own thrilling conclusion this week with a spectacular finale that had everything: glamour, drama, excitement, emotion, and perhaps most poignantly of all, Matt Shirvington asking random Indians who they thought was going to win. The competition came to an embarrassing end when Sarah Murdoch inadvertently announced the wrong winner, continuing the show's twin proud traditions, of supermodels humiliating themselves on live television, and of carrying out the emotional destruction of teenage girls.

Observers then noted how funny it would be if Rob Oakeshott then said he'd announced the wrong name. See? Because of the election? Oh my sides.

Of course there were serious matters of state going on this week too, as much as we might wish they weren't, and the first sitting of the new paradigm-y parliament provided rich, satisfying viewing for political tragics and quadriplegics unable to reach the remote control alike.

A nation watched, breathless, on the edge of our seats, as the great statesmen and women of our era tussled with the momentous issue of whether it was possible to keep answers to under four minutes. Wayne Swan just managed it, sparking huge sighs of relief from coast to coast, until it was revealed the clock was broken and he'd actually gone over time, which prompted demands from the Opposition for Peter Garrett's resignation on the grounds that if he couldn't even install a working clock, how could he be expected to put schools in roofs or something?

There was also a gripping vote on parliamentary procedure, which sparked a furore when the government was defeated in its attempt to prevent debates being held on revisiting a division when a member was absent, raising the question of whether the government would be able to cling onto power if it wasn't able to get even the most minor, simple, meaningless, mind-numbingly uninteresting piece of legislation passed.

On the other hand, the first person ejected in the new parliament was Christopher Pyne, raising the question of whether the Opposition could maintain pressure on the government if vital MPs are continually being ejected.

Unfortunately, these fascinating developments were interrupted by boring old policy, as the Greens continued to beat old drums, flog dead horses, and hammer tired nails, pushing their destructive anti-family pagan ideas of euthanasia and gay marriage.

As Bob Brown prepared to introduce his bill to allow the territories to legislate on euthanasia, Prime Minister Gillard admitted that she was "conflicted" on the subject, inasmuch as though she realised how difficult it would be to implement appropriate checks and safeguards, she was, like all of us, totally on board with the idea of killing old people. But that's just the problem, of course: there are so many people in the world that the average Australian would like to kill, that once you give them the legal ability to kill some of them, it opens the floodgates. There is also the fact that euthanasia, as Tony Abbott points out, is not a "bread and butter" issue for the Australian public: they're more concerned with core problems like pairing.

The Australian Christian Lobby wasn't conflicted, though, declaring their vehement opposition to Brown's bill and saying they would determine which MPs they would have to lobby by scrutinising the conscience-voting records of MPs to detect any tendency towards supporting human dignity or freedom of choice.

Another issue on which the ACL was not conflicted was gay marriage, which the PM did not sanction a conscience vote on, a move applauded by the lobby on the grounds that gay marriage was an issue that went right to the heart of the moral and ethical foundations of our society, and it would not therefore be appropriate for anyone to express their honest beliefs on the subject. Besides which, consciences are, explicitly, anti-Christian. Happily, the fundamentalist Christians and the atheist prime minister thus found common ground in the bedrock belief shared by both church and Labor Party that people in general should not be allowed to say what they think.

To be fair though, it's a difficult issue to unravel, and the only thing we can be certain about is that I would not have the guts to make fun of the Muslims like this.

And I guess, in the end, guts is what this week was all about. The guts of our footballing gladiators to get up off the canvas and go another round. The guts of Sarah Murdoch to admit that she made a mistake, and the guts of the young contestants to restrain themselves from punching her in the neck like everyone else would have. The guts of Christopher Pyne to be true to himself no matter how many speakers eject him. The guts of Bob Brown to propose revolutionary social reforms, and the guts of the Christians and the government to tell him to get back in his hom-wrecking hemp-lined box. And most of all, the guts of the Australian people, to face up to what's going on in this country, and without fear or hesitation, shrug and go back to the football.

Well done everyone. This may be my last column, as I will probably be forced to quit next week after The Australian reveals that I am actually Ken Henry. So thanks for reading, and I hope your team wins this weekend, unless your team is Collingwood, in which case I hope your team gets beaten like a National running for deputy speaker.